Study Buddy (Challenger): Hong Kong swim school helps disabled kids and low income families jump in at the deep end

Content provided by British Council

Read the following text and answer questions 1-9:

[1] Ricky is clad in his swim goggles and a wet suit with a huge smile on his face. For him, everything boils down to one statement: “I feel happier in the water,” said the 11-year-old who just finished his 20th swim lesson. “I like that I can do a back float – it makes me feel very proud.”

[2] Ricky is a part of the Splash Foundation. Splash is a charity in Hong Kong that helps people from under-resourced communities learn to swim. Ricky is part of a class that teaches kids with special education needs, which includes Down syndrome, autism, ADHD and physical disabilities such as difficulty hearing and seeing. The goal is simple: get them comfortable in the water early in life, thus teaching them a valuable life skill in the process.

[3] So far Splash has worked with more than 155 children with disabilities through its Splash Jockey Club SwimABLE Programme. The foundation also gives swimming lessons to foreign domestic workers, kids from low-income families and underprivileged demographics. Ricky’s mother Amy said her son has blossomed under the care of the foundation’s coaches.

[4] Amy said she has noticed a drastic change in her son since he started attending the swimming sessions. “He was initially kind of scared and reluctant to get into the water,” said Amy. “But gradually his coaches felt like his fathers. So the care and attention he got from them was nice, and he felt safe and confident enough to be in the water.”

[5] The World Health Organization estimates that more than 320,000 people lose their lives to drowning every year, and almost 60 per cent of these deaths occur among those under 30. Drowning is the third leading cause of death for children aged five to 14, and 90 per cent of those cases take place in low- and middle-income countries.

[6] Hong Kong has a staggeringly high rate of secondary school students who do not know how to swim – estimated at around 47 per cent of the population – according to a study published in the Asian Journal of Physical Education & Recreation. Simon Holliday, the co-founder of Splash, said more than 3,276 kids and adults have completed their swim programme since it launched in 2015.

[7] “A lot of these kids have never been in a body of water before, so at the start it’s about getting them familiar with a new environment,” Holliday said.

[8] Splash’s programme manager Eunice Cheung said when it came to the classes – whether it was foreign domestic workers or kids with special education needs – coaches made sure they were well researched and prepared on how to handle each attendee specifically.

[9] “The biggest thing is our coaches, they are all very experienced and some of them have 20 years’ experience teaching kids in swimming,” Cheung said. “So they know how to maintain the kids in the optimal arousal level and not get them too hyper, or not active enough.”

[10] Cheung said one of the biggest issues they had was access to pools in Hong Kong to run their programmes, and that they experienced resistance even more so when they mentioned they would be teaching children with special needs. Holliday said this was perplexing for them given what they did, and the fact that the city had 44 public swimming pools and hundreds of private ones in schools, recreational clubs and private buildings. “It’s sad that our biggest issue isn’t funding but just access to pools.”